


The Two Worlds

by Phoenyx



Category: Arslan Senki | Heroic Legend of Arslan, Fairy Tail
Genre: Arslan and Daryun join Team Natsu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-08-20 09:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16553558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenyx/pseuds/Phoenyx
Summary: Arslan and Daryun go to Fairy Tail! What crazy adventures will they have now? The idea for the Chinese Zodiac is not mine, I got it from a fanfiction called Fear of Fangs by RavenNM (I think). Crossposted on Wattpad and Fanfiction under same name. I don't own Fairy Tail or The Heroic Legend of Arslan.





	1. Chapter 1

No one P.O.V.

As the sun set behind the mountains in the distance, the sky was alight with pinks, oranges, and purples. The air was getting colder and crisper by the minute. Arslan and his group of friends he’s made along his long journey, trotted along a dirt road on their horses. They were all on the lookout for a place to stay the night. As Arslan's group was ahead, a larger group of twenty two thousand soldiers traveled behind them.

“Prince Arslan!” Elam, the cook, called, immediately grabbing Arslan's and many others attention. “We can use that meadow as a camp ground!” He calls again, pointing to a field to their right.

The field was bright green, and as the grass was covered in a fresh layer of mist from the earlier rain shower, it glistened orange as the sun's final rays touched the water. The area was closed in by a forest of different colored greens, quickly darkening as the sun sets. The trees also kept the field from several animals that were too big to fit in between the small gaps.

“We will set up camp here!” Arslan yells above the neighing of the horses and chattering of the soldiers. They immediately stopped talking and followed their Prince down a slightly steep decline.

The dirt path started mixing with grass as they descended. Flowers of all colors became more apparent the closer to the bottom the were, and bushes full of many different kinds of berries were scattered along the border. Vines twisted and turned along the ground and the trees, some full of grapes and some empty. When they finally reached the bottom of the path, the flowers were clearer. Shades of oranges, golds, and yellows; blues, black's, purple's; any color you can think of was there in the flowers.

As soon as all the men pooled around and his company, they started taking the tents out of their packages and setting them up. Arslan goes to help, but Daryun shoots him a look and Arslan knows not to argue. He sighs and sits on a soft patch of grass and starts twirling the flower stems between his fingers. Daryun, Arslan over protective guard, looks over and sighs at the sight of his prince looking so bored.

“Highness?” Daryun calls out. Arslan looks up, pausing his actions.

“Would… would you like to help?” Daryun asks hesitantly. Arslan’s face brightens as he shoots of the ground. He nods his head vigorously, jogging over to Daryun. Daryun,still looking hesitant, looks around for the least strenuous activity his prince could do.

“Could you help the guards collect wood for the fire, along with picking up the sticks so the tents don't get holes?” Arslan smiles and nods, wandering away to find some wood. Daryun keeps a worried and protective eye on him the entire time.

When all the sticks and twigs were picked up, along with some thicker pieces of wood, Arslan picked his way back over to Daryun.

“Where should I put these?” Arslan asks him. Narsus, the strategist and resident (horrible) painter, walks up to the two with Alfreed, a girl he rescued and now calls herself his wife, clings to his arm.

“You can put them over there by the fire pit Elam is making.” Narsus speaks up respectfully.

“And as soon as the fire starts going, we can burn those horrid things you call paintings.” Daryun adds. Narsus adopts a playful look of offence, scoffing, and Alfreed angrily hits Daryun arm, not affecting him like she hoped.

“How dare you threaten my Narsus. His paintings are a masterpiece!” She exclaims. She then turns her back towards Daryun, crossing her arms and giving him the silent treatment. She would have stormed off if her beloved Narsus were not by her side. Before the fighting gets out of hand, Arslan puts a stop to it.

“Stop fighting!” The young Prince exclaims. They all look at the prince, surprised by his outburst.

“We apologize, Your Highness.” Daryun says. Alfreed just bows and walks away with a loving glance at Narsus, who soon follows. Arslan sighs in exasperation and walks over to Elam, placing the wood beside him. The other guards notice this and soon follow, all of them getting a small nod of thanks from Elam.

Arslan walks back over to Daryun who's is feeding his horse Shabrang, and strikes up a conversation.

 

As the two converse, a rustling is heard in the bushes. One person starts marking rocks and trees with symbols, casting a spell as they work. They go over each mark several times, making sure it's right and that it's deep enough for the spell to work. When he is satisfied with the looks of it, he stops chanting the spell and starts making sounds, moving the bushes and such to catch the Prince's attention.<

 

As Arslan and Daryun talk, a soldier runs over and snaps at attention.

“Sir! There was suspicious activity in the forest a few minutes ago.” He announced. Arslan nods and turns toward him.

“Alright. Lead the way.” Arslan says. The soldier bows and starts off to the forest, checking once to make sure the Prince is still following him.

When they entered the forest, Arslan diverged from the soldiers, Daryun following him, and went into a clearing that shouldn't be there. There were strange markings on the trees, faintly glowing an orange-ish color.

“What's this?” Arslan question, walking over to one of the marking. He traces it with one finger, and when he takes his finger away, sawdust stays on.

“Daryun!” Arslan calls. Daryun comes up behind Arslan.

“Yes, Your Highness?” He asks.

“What do you make of these?” Arslan wonders.

“They were probably made for a ritual of some sorts.” Daryun answers.

“Then we should probably leave them alone, shouldn't we?”

“Most likely, Highness.” Arslan sighs and they turn to leave, but before they are totally out of the clearing, Arslan trips on something unseen.

The markings glow bright orange, the light seeping from out of the trees and making Narsus get up to check it out. Naturally, that also made Alfreed, Elam, Farangis, and Gieve follow him, and they all trudged into the forest.

When Daryun noticed that Arslan fell, he came back to help him up. Daryun turned to leave again, until he noticed the markings getting brighter. He pulled Arslan into himself as the ground started disappearing and he tried to leave, only to find out that whatever those marking were, made a barrier around the clearing, keeping anything from going in or out.

Trying to figure out how to leave, Daryun noticed Narsus and the others running over. Narsus tried to get in, but he slammed up against an invisible force. Arslan looked at them, trying to get further away from the disappearing center.

“Highness, Daryun!” Narsus calls to them. Arslan turns to them, eyes showing his slight panic.

“It's okay! We'll be fine!” He yells back. Narsus looks at him with doubt in his eyes, and Daryun and Arslan back up to the edge of the barrier.

Just as the ground falls from under Arslan and Daryun, Daryun pulls Arslan closer into his body and they fall into a black void, their friends calling after them. They watch as the ground slowly patches itself back up, and their friends run to the center, trying to reach them before the ground closes fully. Narsus reaches his hand down to try and grab them, but the dirt comes together and closes before he can.

Daryun and Arslan fall, the wind slaps their faces and their hair comes undone. Arslan has tears streaming down his face as they plunge through the air. Daryun looks at him, concern and worry in his eyes.

“Daryun, how are we going to get back?” Arslan asks, his voice almost mute as the wind flies past his ears.

“I don't know, but I swear, I will find a way for you.” Daryun answers, determination in his voice. Arslan nods and holds Daryun tighter, making sure they don't separate so they don't get lost from each other.

Looking down, trees start coming into view, along with a sky that is different from their own. It's almost… calmer, more blue in it, less tinged with blood. They fall through the trees, branches scraping at them and catching their clothes, tearing them. When the tree branches disappear, there's bushes and a green ground. Daryun tightens his grip and twist his body around so that they don't land on their heads, but their side or back.

Arslan and Daryun close their eyes, bracing for impact, and their bodies land on the ground with a loud thud. They starts losing their senses to unconsciousness one by one, their grips loosening, and their bodies relaxing until they are all but dead to the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy P.O.V.

Natsu and Lucy were walking through a field bordered with forests and a building, the Fairy Tail guild. Happy was flying to their right talking about fish, and Natsu was nodding his head in agreement to Happy's jabbering. A gust of cold wind hit Lucy's bare arms and legs, making her shiver. She turned to Natsu, opening her mouth to speak, but she's interrupted by branches snapping and a loud thud.

“Hey, Natsu?” Natsu turns to look at here. “What was that sound?” Lucy asks. Natsu looks at her in confusion before he realizes what she was talking about.

“The falling sound? I don't know.” He answers. 

“Come on, Natsu! We should check it out!” Lucy exclaims, pulling Natsu’s sleeve.

“Can't it wait? I'm hungry!” He whines. Lucy wacks his shoulder. 

“No! Someone could need help!” She says. Natsu sighs.

“Fiiine.” He sighs, letting Lucy pull him to where the noise came from.

“Well, I guess this is where we part. I'll be at the guild" Happy speaks when Lucy and Natsu march into the forest. 

 

They go through the bushes and leaves, stepping over fallen over logs as the trudge deeper into the woods. As the trees gradually became less and less, clearing into a meadow, two lumps become apparent. They don't blend into the ground, and judging by all the broken branches, Lucy would say that the lumps weren't there before. 

She cautiously went forward, coming closer to the lumps and finding it to be cloth. She nudged the cloth with her feet and heard a groan come from them. Natsu flipped the larger one over. It’s a man. His gingerbread looking skin is covered in cuts and bruises. His clothes are battered and torn all over the place and his dark brown hair is disheveled and covered some of his face. His arms are around the other lump, probably another person. Lucy flipped the other lump over and gasped. 

The other lumps is a boy. His milky skin is covered in bruises and scrapes and his clothes are tattered and torn like the other man's. His white hair is splayed behind his head like some sort of model. They both have caps on that are covered in holes and tears. 

The older man has a spear attached to his back and the younger has a sword attached to his hip. Natsu and Lucy pick them up and start carrying them to the guild.

“Natsu, what are we going to do with them?” Lucy asks. Natsu shrugs.

“I guess we'll just give them to Mira.” He replies. Lucy nods.

”Alright.”

 

When the guild doors open, Gray stalks forward in his underwear, looking at Natsu threateningly and ignoring everyone else. Gray charges at Natsu, ready to knock heads, but Lucy stops him with a stern look.

“Gray! You can fight later, but right now we need to get these two to the infirmary.” She exclaims. He grumbles under his breath before grabbing the older man's right arm and helping Natsu carry him to the infirmary. 

They enter the room and place the cargo on some beds carefully, leaving the room and closing the door to protect them from the crazy about to go down. Just seconds after the door closes, the guild erupts in loud noises and brawls, getting back to normal after the strange occurrence.


	3. Chapter 3

Daryun P.O.V.

Daryun opened his eyes and winced at the blinding white light emitting from above where he lay. Squinting his eyes, he waited until they adjusted before opening them again, looking around curiously. As h tried to figure out how he got there, memories of the day before flooded back to him. He shot up to a sitting position and looked around for his charge. Spotting a lump in the bed next to him, Daryun let out a sigh of relief. He quietly swung his legs out of his bed and walked over to Arslan’s, pulling a up a chair he found. As Arslan slumbered peacefully, Daryun put a protective hand on Arslan’s hair. 

Daryun views Arslan as a younger brother, though he would never admit it in fear of Arslan being used as ransom for him. Daryun knows he has a complex over Arslan, as h is more protective over him than he should be. Daryun promised himself that Arslan will always be number one in his life, no matter who else comes in. Arslan groans as he starts to wake up, moving onto his side slightly. Arslan’s eyes flutter open and he smiles at Daryun before adopting a confused look on his face.

“Where are we?” Arslan yawns. 

“I don’t know. Go back to sleep, I’ll keep watch until I can figure out where we are.” Daryun answers, smiling. Arslan nods and closes his eyes again, snuggling back into the bed. Daryun sighs and looks at the door to the room he is in. After a few minutes of Arslan sleeping peacefully, Daryun hears a noise outside the door. He tilts his head to hear it better, and he tenses up, making sure his spear is within arms length. The door opens and a girl with blond hair and brown eyes walks in. When she looks up from what she is holding, she gasps and drops it.

“You’re awake!” She exclaims. Daryun moves his hand closer to the spear, still on guard. 

“Who are you and where are we?” Daryun demands. She jumps slightly, not expecting the harsh tone.

“You’re in Fairy Tail.” 

“Where’s that?” 

“Magnolia.” 

“And where’s that?” 

“Earthland. How do you not know that?” Daryun is quiet for a few seconds.

“You still haven’t told me who you are.” He reminds her.

“Oh! Um, I'm Lucy Heartfilia. I'm a Celestial Spirit mage. Can I ask who you are?” Daryun is silent for a few more seconds before relaxing, deeming her safe.

“This is Prince Arslan of Pars and I am Daryun, his knight and protector.” 

“There is no Pars where we are.” Lucy speaks up.

“That’s impossible! We we’re just there!” Daryun exclaims. “Besides, this ‘Earthland’ of yours doesn’t exist!” 

“Well, that’s where we are now.” Lucy says. Daryun’s eyes widen.

“But that’s impossible.” He mumbles. “We’re in a different world!” 

“It’s not that impossible. There’s Edolas and the Celestial Spirit world.” Lucy explains. Daryun sighs.

“Alright.” 

“Um, would you like to get some food?” 

“Yes. Let me just wake up His Highness and we will follow you to you kitchen.” Daryun turns his attention back to Arslan and shakes him gently. 

“Your Highness, wake up. We’re going to get some food.” He says. Arslan groans and sits up.

“Okay.” Arslan says and swings his legs off the bed. They walk out of the room and into the guild hall, Daryun hovering over Arslan’s shoulder. Everyone falls silent at the sight of them. Arslan smiles slightly and waves at them. That brings everyone back to reality and they smile and greet the duo. Arslan sighs in relief of not being surrounded and they go to the bar. Daryun catches sight of Lucy as she leaves the guild, turning her head to face something before sighing and going out towards it. Drayun’s attention is drawn by girl with white hair and blue eyes comes out of a door to the bar and comes up to Arslan and Daryun.

“Hello. I see you both are better. Would you like something to eat?” She asks. They nod and she smiles.

“I'm Mirajane, but please, call me Mira.” She says. 

“Pleasure to meet you, Mira. I am Prince Arslan and this is Daryun, my knight.” Arslan greets back, smiling. Mira smiles back and makes them some food. Daryun glances around the guild hall, catching several people glance at them. He sighs. This is going to be a long stay.


	4. Chapter 4

Arslan P.O.V.

Daryun and Arslan sit at the bar, quietly eating something called a ‘donut’, something that they don’t have in Pars, when the guild doors open and a man with pink hair comes in with a flying blue cat. 

“I'm back!” The pink haired man screams. There is a collective ‘welcome back’ in the guild, and a guy in his underwear marches up to the pink haired guy.

“Oi, Flamebrain! There’s no need to make such loud noises. You don’t have to yell every time you come in that door!” He yells. The pink haired man gets this red fiery aura around him and the underwear man gets an icey blue one. They butt foreheads and start yelling insults at each other.

“Ice Breath!”

“Charcoal Breath!”

“Ice Princess!”

Lucy’s head pops back into the guild, sighing when she sees the fighting duo. She walks over to the bar, waving to Arslan and Daryun and plopping down in a seat. Lucy asks for a strawberry smoothie and turns to Arslan.

“So, now that you have been awake for a little while, do you know how you got here? Natsu and I found you two out in a forest yesterday.” Lucy asks, giving the duo a questioning look. Arslan shrugs his shoulders, wondering that himself.

“I do not know. We were exploring a forest and found some runes and then the ground fell out. Then we woke up here.” Arslan explains. 

“So you do come from another world! I had my suspicions when Daryun started talking about places that don’t exist here, but you just confirmed my theory.” Lucy says, sipping on her smoothie. 

“What?” Daryun asks. “How can you be so calm about this?”

“Because I'm a Celestial Spirit Mage. The spirits come from another world, so why can’t there be even more? Plus, we have already been to another one called Edolas.” Lucy explains. Daryun and Arslan stare at her in amazement. 

“That’s cool!” Arslan exclaims. They continue talking until a table is thrown in their direction, making Arslan blink in surprise when it hits just above their heads. Daryun turns, demons in his eyes as he hunts for the person who threw it. To his surprise, half the guild is cowering in the back of the guild in a huddle while the other half are pointing to a blue haired man in his underwear. 

“Gray, your clothes!” Mira exclaims. The man, Gray, looks down. 

“Crap!” He exclaims, grabbing his clothes from where he discarded them on the ground and throwing them on. Arslan looks at him in confusion and Daryun goes to march up next to Gray, but Arslan stops him.

“Daryun, I am sure that Mr. Gray here did not mean to throw the table over in our direction. Right, Mr. Gray?” Arslan asks, giving him a look to go along with it unless he wants to die. 

“Uh, yup! It was meant for… Uh… Flamebrain over there.” Gray says, jerking a thumb in the direction the pink haired guy is in.

“What did you say, Droopy Eyes?” the pink haired man yelled.

“You heard me, Flame Breath!” Gray shouts. They start butting heads together, blue and red flames appearing around them as their anger increases. Arslan watches on in worry.  
“Um, should they be doing that?” Arslan asks in concern. Lucy sighs and nods.

“They do it all the time. No one stops them, it’s normal in this guild.” She explains. Arslan nods in understanding. 

“Oh, Okay. That makes sense, I guess. “ He responds. Arslan takes a sip of something Mira placed in front of him called a ‘smoothie’ and looks around the guild. His face turns into one of confusion when Gray comes over to them completely naked. 

“Excuse me sir, my I borrow your underwear?” He asks. Arslan stared at him in confusion while Daryun’s eyes possess demons again. Daryun glares at Gray from behind Arslan, making sure that he can not see. Daryun grins in satisfaction when Gary runs away in fear and muttering something about him being ‘scarier than Ezra’, whoever that was. The people that were huddled together nod in agreement and everyone looks over to the duo, surprised to find Daryun completely normal and checking on Arslan. Lucy stands up, saying she will be right back after she talks to Gray. Her seat is then taken by the pink haired man who stares at Arslan and Daryun weirdly. 

“Hello, I'm Natsu Dragneel, nice to meet you.” He said, sticking his hand out. Arslan takes it and gives him a handshake.

“I am Prince Arslan and this is my guardian, Daryun. Pleasure to meet you, too.” Arslan introduces, sighing in relief when Natsu does not react to the prince title. Everyone talks more, some others coming over and introducing themselves, like the Erza girl, Gajeel, Levy, Laxus, much to many people’s surprise, Elfman and Lisanna, Wendy, and the exceeds. When the exceeds came over, Arslan looked at them with curiosity before jumping when they started talking.

“It is nice to meet you, Arslan. I am Carla.” The white one spoke. “This is Happy,” She pointed to the blue cat. “And this is Pantherlily.” She pointed to the black cat. Arslan had stared at them in shock.

“Your cats! And you- you can talk! Oh my!” Arslan had exclaimed. He dropped to his knees onto the floor, picking up Carla, who crosses her arms and huffs. 

“Oh, you guys are adorable!” He said. Carla blushed slightly and dropped her arms when Arslan placed her on his knees. 

“Highness, we should get to bed. We need to get up early tomorrow.” Daryun reminded. Arslan sighed and put Carla back on her feet and stood up, walking over to Daryun’s side.

“You’re right, but where will we rest?” He asks. Daryun looks over to Mira for a place.

“Oh! You can sleep in the apartments on the field behind the guild. Come with me, I’ll show you.” She says. They follow Mira outside and into a building and she opens a door, revealing the inside. 

“You can stay here. You will have access to everything you will need, plus the guild. Now, I will leave you on your own to get used to your surroundings. Good bye.” She says, heading out of the building.

Daryun and Arslan watch her leave and then turn to look into the apartment. They step in and look around, finding a large room, a bathroom, and two bed chambers right next to each other. They go into one, finding two beds and sit on them.

“Go to sleep. You’re going to need it.” Daryun says. “I’ll go to bed shortly. I have to make sure everything is set.” Arslan sighs and nods, throwing his legs onto the bed and under the blankets. “Goodnight, Daryun.” Arslan yawns and closes his eyes, letting his tiredness overcome him.


	5. Chapter 5

Daryun P.O.V.

Daryun wakes up before the sun rises, as usual, and kicks his legs over the side of the bed and stands up, quietly walking over to the kitchen. He looked around curiously, spotting a big white rectangular box with handles in it. He opens it at the ready, not knowing what is inside. A light flicks on inside, surprising Daryun enough to make him jump slightly, but not much else. He made the mistake of looking directly into the light, not used to not being able to and quickly rips his eyes away, blinking away the colorful blotch now in his vision. He opens the door all the way, noticing it is already stocked with food. He makes a content sound and closes the door with a quiet popping sound.

Daryun looks around again, noticing a hollow part of the counters. Silver shines in the light, drawing Daryun over to it. He notices a long silver part in the middle of two shorter silver parts, sticking out over the hollow part. He takes one of the smaller parts and turns it, jumping at the water that comes rushing out. He turns it again, the other direction, and marvels at how it stops immediately. Turning it again, he leaves it on, watching as the water comes out in a never ending flow.

“Woah…” Daryun mutters, eyes full of curiosity. He turns it again, not wanting to waste the water incase it does run out, and turns. Cabinets, the weird cold box, the hallow dip with water, and tables. Nothing to weird, just… different. Content with his discoveries, Daryun walks back over to his shared room and looks out a window, noticing the sun coming up. He sighs and walks over to the youngers bed, kneeling beside his prince.

“Your Highness, It is time to awaken. We have a full day ahead of us to try to figure out a way back.” Daryun says, voice a little higher than a whisper. Arslan’s eyes flicker open and Arslan groans, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

“Good mornin’, Daryun.” Arslan mumbles, sitting up and becoming more awake. “Can we go back to the guild today?” Daryun smiles slightly, the one reserved specifically for Arslan.

“Of course, Your Highness. We can head out whenever you want.” Daryun says. Arslan smiles and jumps off his bed, fixing his hair into a ponytail.  
“Can we go now?” He asks.

“As you wish, Your Highness.” Daryun smiles as Arslan brightens and runs over to the door, opening it.

“Come on, let’s go!” Arslan exclaims, holding the door open. Daryun shakes his head in amusement and walks through the door. Arslan practically skips to the guild with Daryun trailing behind him. When he opens the door, everyone looks at them and smiles.

“Welcome back!” Several chorus. Arslan smiles at them, making several of the girls blush, much to Arslan’s confusement. He ignores it though and sits at the bar, smiling at Mirajane. She smiles back and gives Daryun and Arslan something called a strawberry shake.

“So, what are you guys going to be doing today?” She asks them. Arslan shrugs.

“I do not know. Perhaps we could join someone in questing.” He says. Mira smiles.

“Maybe. Oh hey Lucy, Natsu!” Mira says, waving over at the guild door. Lucy comes straight over while Natsu and Happy go over to the quest bored.

“Hey Mira, Arslan, Daryun. Natsu and I were just talking, and we wanted to know if you and Daryun would like to join us for a quest.” Lucy asks, looking at Arslan. Arslan nods excitedly, but looks at Daryun, who nods at Arslan.

“We would love to!” Arslan says. Lucy smiles.

“Great! Well, Natsu should be here with Happy shortly with a quest we can do.” Lucy speaks. She turns to Mira and also orders a ‘strawberry shake’, sipping it as we wait.

Natsu soon comes over with a flier in his hands, waving it happily. Happy sits on Arslan’s lap, purring as Arslan scratches just behind his ear.

“I got us a job!” He announces, handing it over to Lucy, who reads it over quickly.

“This job would be great, especially because Arslan and Daryun accepted in joining us on this quest.” Lucy says. Natsu smiles.

“Really? That’s great. The more the merrier.” He responds.

“What kind of quest is it?” Arslan asks, curiosity taking control.

“Well, in this quest we need to lure out a monster from out of the woods and kill him, but the towns people are saying that magic doesn’t work on it. So we thought that we would ask you guys because of your coming from a different world and all, you might know how to kill it.” Lucy responds. Arslan nods in understanding.

“Alright. Well, we can go whenever.” Arslan tells them.

“Alright, let’s go!” Natsu exclaims, dragging Arslan and Lucy by their hands, ignoring Daryun evil glare as he follows.


	6. Chapter 6

Arslan P.O.V.  
The group had to board something called a ‘train’ for this mission, much to Natsu’s displeasure. As soon as they boarded the thing he started looking queasy. They sat down on benches facing each other and with a blow of a whistle, the ‘train’ was moving. Arslan stared out the window in fascination of the land flying past them, and Daryun was looking around the train in wonder. How could something made out of so much metal move so fast? When Arslan turned his attention back to his companions, he noticed Natsu looking sick.

“Are you okay?” Arslan asked, looking at Natsu in concern. Natsu nodded, struggling to hold a hand up in a thumbs up position. His other hand was held over his mouth to stop him from puking.

“He’s fine. He’s always like this when it comes to moving vehicles. He’s just motion sick.” Lucy tells him. Arslan nods.

“Oh, alright.” Arslan speaks in understanding. Lucy smiles and pats Natsu’s hair as he tried not to get too sick. Arslan looks around at the rest of team Natsu. Erza, Gray, Lucy, Natsu, Happy, Daryun. He plucks Happy from the arm rest he was sitting uncomfortably on and put him in his lap.

“You looked uncomfortable.” Arslan tells Happy when he gets a questioning look from said exceed. Happy nods and snuggles up to Arslan’s chest before falling asleep. Arslan smiles and looks out the window to watch the trees pass by.

 

At the train’s stopping for the third time, everyone got off. They went to find a hotel to put their belongings in before they started hunting down the forest monster. Most of the hotels that they came across were closed because no one wanted to stay in the town while the monster was there. Finally, they found an open hotel. It was somewhat run down with paint peeling off of it and wood chipping, but it would do. Lucy went up and checked them out a couple of rooms and came back with two keys.

“We are all going to be sharing a room because we will hardly be in them, but I have two keys because we will be dividing into two groups. Daryun, Gray, Erza, here is your key. Natsu, Arslan, your with me. Let’s drop out stuff off and then search the forest. Nasty will shoot fire into the air if we come across him, Gray I want you to send some of your ice up to alert us if you find him first. Let’s go.” Lucy declares. The group nods and they follow Lucy to their room and put their stuff down by beds. Arslan walks over to Lucy and Natsu and Daryun goes over to Gray and Erza, but not before hesitating on leaving his prince with people they just met.

Gray notices this and assures Daryun that Arslan will be okay, Natsu and Lucy will protect him with everything they’ve got. Because, even though they just met, Arslan and Daryun are like family, and Family gets protected. Daryun sighs in relief and stands next to Gray with his spear in his hands.

“Daryun, if you don't mind me asking, why are you so protective over Arslan?” Gray asks. “I mean, I know you are his guard, but I have never met anyone overprotective as you are.” Daryun sighs.

“I made a promise to my Uncle to protect Arslan no matter what, to put him in front of any other person or thing. He didn't grow up in a loving family. In fact, the first time he met his parents was when he was around the age of five. Before then he grew up with a nursemaid. Even after then, he still stayed with the nursemaid until he had about eight years. That’s when he first started living in the with his parents in the castle. But they still hardly acknowledged him unless they absolutely needed too. So I am taking it upon myself to makeup for all the years of neglect by protecting him. Besides, even if that wasn’t the case, he is like a little brother to me. No harm will ever come to him as long as I can help it.” Daryun answers.

“Wow. That’s… deep.” Gray responds, his eyes wide. Daryun chuckles.

“I guess it is. But you wanted an answer.” Gray laughs this time.

“I guess I should have expected it.” As Gray and Daryun converse, Lucy is busy talking to Arslan, Natsu, and Happy.

“Okay guys, when we go into the forest, we can not separate. If we do, Arslan you need to stay with either me or Natsu because, if we find the monster, you won’t be able to send a signal. Understand?” Lucy asks. Arslan nods.

“Alright, I understand. When are we gonna go, though?” Arslan asks. “It would be unwise to wait until nightfall because then it would have a better chance of finding us first.” Lucy nods.

“Alright. Then we should head out today to get a headstart. We still have a few hours of daylight left before the sun starts to set.” She says. Turning her head to be heard by the others, she talks in a louder voice.

“We should head out now! We can meet up in the room again at sunset.” The others nod and the group heads out the door and to the forest. 

 

Arslan, Lucy, Natsu, and Happy go to the East end of the forest while Gray, Daryun, and Erza go to the West end. The dark trees grew even darker the further from the town they went. Arslan was unperturbed by this, though Lucy started getting a little wary. As soon as they felt they were far enough from the town, they entered the forest in search for the monster.

“Alright everyone, be careful. The townspeople that are still there said that the monster is big and green and has horns on his head.” Lucy tells them. Arslan nods, his eyes already scanning the forest area. At every noise, he becomes more on guard and ready to fight. Natsu and Happy start chatting away about something random, probably fish, making Lucy grow agitated.

“Stop talking! We’re gonna get caught!” She exclaims. Just as she says that, an enraged roar shakes the forest. Arslan jumps at attention with his sword in his hands and cans the area quickly. A shimmer of light makes him jump out of the way of a projectile heading towards him.

“Lucy, Natsu, Happy! Lookos out!” Arslan yells. They look over to where he is looking and Lucy pulls out her keys, waiting. A giant green thing emerges from out of the forest and stands angrily in front of the group. It swings up its arms and gets ready to hit but Lucy and Arslan jump out of the way just in time.

“Natsu! Create a ring of fire around him, see if that stops him!” Lucy commands, grabbing her wip and taking hold of the things shoulder. Natsu nods and cups his hands around his mouth, blowing through them and creating a circle of fire around the thing. It roars in frustration, looking for an exit. As it looked, Arslan readied his sword. The monster turned in a circle and when it couldn’t find an exit, it roared again and charged through the fire and huffed when it felt nothing.

“It’s not affected by magic…” Lucy remembers. “Dang it.” Arslan’s grip on his sword hardens and he raises it, running at the monster and slicing an arm off when it turned away from him. It growled in pain, gripping the stub of his shoulder. The arm that was cut off fell limply to the floor in front of Arslan. Noticing that the thing stopped it’s charge to willow in pain,they started paying attention to their surroundings. Noticing Arslan suddenly swing around, Natsu and Lucy turned their heads, not noticing anything. They turned their heads back to face the monster and make sure it doesn’t get away.

“Highness!” A voice similar to Daryun’s cuts through the trees, enraging the monster again.

“Daryun!” Arslan yells back, readying his sword again and looking at the monster. Daryun and his group breaks through the trees and looks at the current situation, from the blood dripping from Arslan’s sword to the monster and his missing arm, and then Daryun pulls out his spear and holds it at the ready, aiming at the monster.

The monster flares its nostrils and charges at Arslan, pin-pointing him for the cause of its pain. Arslan raises his sword and glances at Daryun, giving him permission. Daryun nods slightly, being the only one who notices it. As the monster is focused on Arslan, Daryun goes from behind and throws his spear, hitting the monster right where its heart is. Arslan also stabs it in the stomach, causing the monster to collapse on the floor with a howl of agony. Blood spilled from its body, leaking faster when Arslan and Daryun remove their weapons. They look at the monster and then at each other, smiling, knowing that they just did something nobody in their world would believe.


	7. Chapter 7

Daryun’s P.O.V.

On the way back to the guild, Lucy held their reward as they, the whole of Team Natsu, laughed and joked together about nothing and everything and things in between. Finally they started talking about the quest.

“How did you guys do that? You were like ‘slice’ and the monster was like ‘waaah’ and then you could tell that Daryun and Erza and Gray were there but we couldn’t and then when they got out of the forest you looked at each other and were like ‘yeah we have a plan, let’s do it’ and then you were like ‘cut’ and Daryun was like ‘stab’ and you killed the monster!” Natsu exclaims. Erza rolls her eyes and Arslan giggles.

“We have been fighting together for a while now. We know each other well enough to give each other looks like that and know what we are talking about. Like right now, Daryun is thinking about practicing with his spear with Narsus’ paintings.” He says. Daryun smirks.

“Heaven knows they deserve worse than my spear.” He says. Arslan smiles.

“They sure are… something.” He responds. Lucy looks at them in confusion.

“Just how bad are they?” Gray asks the question that was on Lucy’s mind.

“Everytime I see one I feel like a thousand swords are stabbing my eyes.” Daryun deadpans. Lucy sweat drops.

“Oh hehe… he.” She laughs nervously. They got to the train station to Fiore and Natsu started paling before he even boarded. As soon as they boarded and the train started moving, Natsu became green.

“It’s okay Natsu. It’ll pass soon enough.” Arslan sympathises. Natsu gives him a shaky smile before immediately almost puking again. Daryun sighs and leans back in his seat. This is gonna be a long ride he thinks. 

 

When the train stops and Natsu gets out, he practically kisses the ground in happiness. Arslan and happy giggle and Lucy and Gray groan.

“Come on, we should get back to the guild. We need to turn in the flier to master and tell him we completed it.” Lucy explains. Arslan nods.

“Alright. Lead the way.” 

 

Before they even opened the door, they could hear a fight happening in the guild. Lucy sighs and opens the door, moving out of the way of a flying table with practised ease. The table crashes against Natsu, who instantly joins in the fight and hits Gray, who hits Erza, making the fight escalate quickly. Arslan and Daryun slink against the walls towards the bar and sit down on the stool.

“Hey guys, welcome back. Would you like anything?” Mira asks.

“Thank you. Could we both have a… what’s it called… ‘milkshake’?” Arslan asks. He knows that both he and Daryun liked them the last time.

“Of course! One minute.” She gives them a warm smile. As she is turned away, a cup comes flying and hits her head, although the only thing that seems affected by it is her now slightly ruffled hair.

“Here you go, Arslan, Daryun. Enjoy.” Mira says, giving them their milkshakes. Arslan thanks her and watched the guild fight. Whenever some projectile comes towards either of them, they move out of the way.

“Excuse me, Daryun and Arslan?” They look over at Master Makarov in front of them.

“Yes?” Arslan asks, tilting his head.

“Well, since you two have been on a quest and have helped Team Natsu, and you have participated in one or two guild fight, would you like to join?” He asks. Arslan brightens up and looks at Daryun with a hopeful look in his eyes, checking if he wants to as well. Daryun nods and Arslan turns back to Makarov.

“Of course! We would be honored to join the guild, Master Makarov. That is, if you would have us.” Arslan responds. Makarov nods.

“Alright. Mira, would you get the stamp for us?” He asks, looking over at Mira who is cleaning a cup. She nods and puts the cup down, then goes into the back to grab the stamp. When she returns, a large brown box looking stamp is in her hands.

“Alright. What color do you want and where would you like it?” She asks sweetly.

“Could I have it any color of blue and on my hand?” Arslan asks. Mira nods.

“Of course.” She positions it above Arslan’s hand. “Are you sure? Once I place it, it is final.” She says. Arslan nods. She smiles and presses it down on Arslan’s hand. He feels a slight stinging and when she pulls the stamp away, a cerulean colored guild mark is on his hand. Mira looks over at Daryun and smiles.

“What color and where?” She asks. He thinks for no more than a few seconds before responding.

“A dark purple color, and on my shoulder, if you will.” He responds. She smiles and moves it over to his shoulder and looks at him, silently asking if he’s sure. He nods and she presses it down, leaving the slight stinging around the mark. When she removes it, a raisin colored guild mark is on his shoulder.

“Thank you.” Arslan and Daryun thank her. She smiles.

“It was no problem!” She exclaims. Arslan turns to thank Makarov but notices he’s gone. Arslan shrugs and starts conversing with Daryun and Mira.

“Listen up you brats!” A voice cuts through the fight. The entire guild looks up to the second floor rail where it came from. There, on the railing, was Master Makarov.

“I have received many complaints from towns, again, from where the quests have come from, about destroyed buildings and such.” He says, his voice full of disappointment. “But. That doesn’t matter! We should celebrate for two new members in the guild!” He points to Daryun and Arslan. A hush falls over the guild and then it erupts in cheers and welcomes. Team Natsu comes over to them and Natsu pats Arslan’s back, making him grab the stool he was sitting on as to not fall off.

“Congrats, guys.” He says. Arslan smiles.

“Thank you, Natsu.” Arslan responds.

“Hey, now that you are part of the guild officially, would you like to also join Team Natsu officially?”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Of course! Right guys? They can join right?” Natsu turns to Lucy, Happy, Gray, and Erza.

“I see no problem with it.” Erza says.

“Eh, why not? You guys helped a lot with that last job anyway.” Gray says, smirking.

“Of course they can join. There isn’t a rule that says we can’t have anymore.” Lucy replies.

“They are nice, they give me fish.” Happy adds. Natsu turns back to Arslan and Daryun with a grin.

“See?” He says. Daryun nods.

“Alright, we will join.” Daryun says. So Team Natsu grew again.


	8. Chapter 8

Daryun P.O.V.

It has been a month since Daryun and Arslan have joined Team Natsu. So far they have enjoyed it. Their non magical ways have really helped the team realise that you don’t need magic for everything you do. Anyway, when Daryun woke up that morning, he felt like something was wrong. Specifically with Arslan, thanks to his sixth sense. Daryun looked over at Arslan and couldn’t see anything wrong with him. Daryun frowned and got out of his bed. He walked over to Arslan’s bed and saw a light pink flush on Arslan’s paler than normal face. 

“Your Highness?” Daryun askes carefully, shaking the prince slightly. When Arslan only stirred, Daryun’s frown increased, as did his worry. He gently put his hand on Arslan's forehead, his stomach twisting and turning in worry. Daryun pulled his hand away. Arslan only groaned, almost whining at the loss of the cool contact. Arslan’s eyes cracked open slightly but his eyes were out of focus.

“Daryun?” He croaked, his voice hoarse and cracking at the end. Daryun grabs a cup of water and sits the prince up, putting the top of the cup to Arslan’s lips. He tips the water into Arslan’s mouth and rubs slow circles in Arslan’s back with his thumb. When all the water is gone, Daryun put the cups down on a side table and lays Arslan back down, putting the blankets over him.

“Get some rest, Highness. You’re ill. I shall go get Mira so that she can help.” Daryun informs. Arslan nods groggily and his eyes flutter shut. Daryun sighs, his concern about to bubble over and take control. He stands up and walks over to the door, opening it and freezing in the doorway. He glances back at Arslan slumbering peacefully and breaths out, then closes the door behind him. He walks over to the guild and pushes the guild doors open. Everyone is silenced when they glance at the guild doors and only see Daryun with an aura of worry covering him like a cloak.

With a stormy look on his face, Daryun takes hurried steps into the guild and over to the bar, ignoring the people jumping out of his way. He stands next to his usual stool and hits a small bell on the counter, getting Mira to come over almost immediately. 

“Hello, Daryun. What can I help you with? And where’s Arslan?” She asks. 

“His Highness is ill. I have come to ask you of your assistance.” Daryun speaks. Mira nods, and walks out from behind the bar. 

“Okay, let me get a bucket of water and a cloth and then I will join you back out here and you can guide me to your room.” Mira says and walks over to the medical room. She comes back out with a bucket filled with ice cold water and a dry cloth in hand.

“Alright, let’s go.” She says. Daryun stalks out of the room with Mira on his trail and goes to his room. When he opens the door, he motions for Mira to be quiet as they enter.

“His Highness is asleep and I would prefer it to stay that way. He has not been getting all the sleep he should be with us constantly on the move.” He said. Mira nods in understanding. They walk over to Arslan’s bed and Mira kneels down, putting the bucket on the floor silently. She dips the cloth into it and wrings it out. She folds it and places it on Arslan’s forehead. Arslan sighs and seems to try to lean into the cold item on his forehead.

“How long has he been like this?” Mira asks.

“I do not know. I woke up this morning and felt like something was wrong. When I looked over at His Highness, I could not see anything wrong, but where we live, you learn to trust your instincts, so I checked, and then I found out he is ill and went to call you.” Daryun responds. Mira nods.

“Alright. Every twenty minutes or so you should replace the water in the cloth. In about two hours you should check to see if his temperature has gone down. If not, give him a cold bath and then lay him down again with the cloth.” Mira directs. Daryun nods his thanks and watches as Mira leaves quietly. Daryun sighs and plops down onto a chair he pulled close to the bed. He watches Arslan doze on the bed, looking a little bit better without the sick, heated look to his face. 

Time seemed to inch by at a crawl. Daryun spent most of it worrying over Arslan, hoping his illness doesn’t take a turn for the worse. By the time two hours rolled around, Daryun was practicing with his spear in the mostly empty area of their shared bedroom. Daryun glances up at the clock, sweat rolling down his face, and put his spear down on a bedside table. He grabbed the hem of his shirt and wiped the sweat off of his face before he walked over to the bed Arslan was occupying.

“Your Highness?” Daryun whispered. He put his hand on Arslan’s shoulder and shook him gently. “Your Highness? Are you awake?” Arslan gave a groan and his eyes fluttered open. 

“Daryun?” Arslan questions. Daryun smiles fondly.

“Good morning, Your Highness. Are you feeling better?” Daryun asks. Arslan groans and nods.

“Mm-hmm. Little warm, though.”

“Alright, Highness. I will take a few blankets off, but it would be wise of you to keep the bottom one on, alright?” 

“Okay.” Arslan snuggles back into the bed as Daryun takes off some of the blankets. Already, Arslan felt better.

“Alright, Your Highness. You should go back to sleep. Your gonna need it if you want to get back to peak condition.” Daryun explains. Arslan nods and closes his eyes.

“Alright, Goodnight, Daryun.” He says. Sleep washes over him like a wave, and in no time at all, he is out like a light. Daryun sighs and sits down on his bed. He looks over at Arslan once more and turns out the light, ready to go to sleep.

 

The next morning, Daryun awoke at his usual time. He stood up and stretched before walking over to the other bed and placing his calloused hand on Arslan’s forehead. His fever was gone, like it had vanished overnight, or never even been there. Daryun let out a breath of relief. Thankfully, Arslan’s recovery had gone smoothly and nothing catastrophic had happened to the young prince. Daryun took his hand off and backed away. He grabbed his spear and started practicing while he waited for Arslan to wake up. 

Arslan’s eyes flicked open and closed immediately after as he winced at the sudden attack of light. He blinked a few times to get used to the light change and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He sat up and stretched his arms before looking around for Daryun. It wasn’t that hard to spot him, though, as he was in the middle of the room with his spear. 

“Good morning, Daryun.” Arslan voice rang out, interrupting Daryun’s thoughts. Daryun put down his spear and joined Arslan at the side of his bed.

“Your Highness. I trust you are feeling well now?” Daryun asks. Arslan nods.

“Yes. After a good night's rest I feel better.” He responds. Arslan swings his legs over the side of the bed and puts his feet on the cold wooden floor.

“Daryun, could we go to the guild today?” Arslan asks. Daryun nods.

“Of course, Your Highness. We can go right away if you wish.” Daryun responds. Arslan smiles. 

“Alright.” He stands up and heads to the door, leaving the room with Daryun and heading to the guild hall. 

 

As soon as they enter the guild, dozens of faces turn towards them. Mira must have told them what happened, because several of them come up to Arslan and ask how he feels. Arslan, somewhat surprised by this, answers with the same thing everytime. Daryun walks up behind Arslan and puts a hand on his shoulder, telling the other people to move out of the way so that they can get to where they are going. Daryun smiles at them once they move and guides Arslan to the table Team Natsu has claimed as their own.   
“Hey, Arslan! Mira told us what happened. Are you all better now?” Natsu asks, giving Arslan his toothy smile. 

“Yeah, I am alright. I believe it was just an illness that affected people for a day.” He responds.

“Well that’s good. Being sick isn’t fun, at all.” Lucy says. 

“Well, now that your better, how about we look for a job?” Natsu asks.

“Natsu! He just got better! Can you lay off him for, maybe, a day?” Lucy exclaims, waking Natsu’s head.

“Ow!” Natsu yelps. Arslan giggles at their playful banter and smiles.

“How about, tomorrow, first thing, you can pick out a job for us, Natsu?” Arslan suggests.

“That’s a great idea!” Natsu yells.

“Keep it down, Flamebrain!” Gray says, his shirt already off.

“You keep it down, Ice Princess!” Natsu retorts.

“Charcoal Breath!”

“Ice for brains!”


	9. Chapter 9

Arslan P.O.V.

“Arslan, Daryun, have you guys ever been to an arcade?” Lucy suddenly asks one day.

“What is an ‘arcade’?” Arslan asks.

“Arcades are places where you go and you can play games and win prizes and it’s really fun!” Natsu explains, jumping into the conversation. Arslan looks at him confused.

“Besides, you guys never go anywhere except for when we drag you out to go on jobs.” Gray says.

“Drag us? No one has ever dragged us.” Daryun says, confused.

“It’s a figure of speech.” Lucy explains. Daryun and Arslan nod.

“You guys deserve a break.” Erza says. 

“Aye, sir!” Happy agrees.

“Alright. This world truly is really different from ours.” Arslan says. 

“Let’s go!” Natsu exclaims. He grabs Lucy’s hand, making a chain reaction of her grabbing Gray’s, who grabs Erza’s, who grabs Arslan’s, who grabs Daryun’s. The line of people left the guild with Happy flying next to them. 

 

“This ‘arcade’ is bigger than I first thought.” Arslan says, looking up at the tall building. 

“Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go inside!” Lucy exclaims. Arslan nods.

“Alright.” He says. He follows the group inside with Daryun trailing behind him. Flashing, colored lights and noises coming from seeming everywhere surprise both Daryun and Arslan. 

“Woah…” Arslan says, eyes full of wonder. Even Daryun looks impressed.

“How are all the lights different colors? And where is the music coming from?” Daryun asks, looking around.

“Well, the lights are a kind of light magic that doesn’t require much magic, but is still really cool. They cast the magic and the lights go on, multiple colors and shine on the place.” Lucy explains. “And the music is coming from the games people are playing.”

“Oh.. Alright.” Daryun says, nodding even though he still doesn’t quite get everything. 

“Well? What are you waiting for? Play!” At that everyone split up, except Arslan and Daryun. They stuck together and looked around the place, surprised by all the people playing. They look at each other in surprise and then Arslan shrugs.

“Well, we should look around.” He says. Daryun nods.

“I believe that would be the best course of action.” He says. Arslan looks around once more before taking a step closer to one of the unoccupied boxes. He walks up to it and stares at the blank, black box in front of him, wondering what to do. 

“Highness, look at all these buttons. I wonder, what would they do?” Daryun asks. Arslan looks down at all the buttons and shrugs.

“I do not know.” He says. Daryun hesitantly puts his hand above one of the buttons.

“Shall I… press it?” He asks, unsure if he should. Arslan nods. Daryun’s hand wavers before he presses down and takes his hand off quickly. The once black screen comes to life and color flicks across the box. Music tumbles out of the box making both Daryun and Arslan jumps in surprise. A blocky looking character stands in the box, bouncing at his knees up and down over and over again. 

“What?” Arslan asks to no one, bewildered at the sudden change.

“This is strange.” Daryun says. Arslan looks back down at the buttons and presses another one, jumping when the box makes another noise.He glances back up at the top box and sees the character had moved. Now, more blocky looking things comes flying at the character. As they hit it, a red bar in the corner goes down more and more. When the bar emptied completely the character fell onto its back and flashed off of the screen. Giant, red letters came onto the center of the screen.

“Game over.” A voice said from the box. Arslan poked the box.

“What happened?” He asks Daryun.

“I do not know.” He says. Daryun looks back at the buttons and presses the same one he pressed before and smiled triumphantly when the box reset itself. 

“What are you two doing?” Lucy asks, coming from behind them. Arslan moves out of the way so that she can see.

“We found an unoccupied box and came over to it, but we did not know how to use it. So Daryun pressed a button that brought this up onto the box and i pressed another button that made block things fly towards the little person, but then a red bar in the corner went down all the way and the person fell onto his back.” Arslan explains. Lucy laughs.

“Well, this is not a box, it is a gaming system. The screen with the little person is where you look to see what they are doing, and the buttons are what you press to make your character do things.” Lucy explains. “Here, watch.” She walks up to the gaming system and presses a button, starting the game. Arslan and Daryun watch in awe as she expertly makes the tiny person jump and hit the things flying at them. 

“The goal of the game is to not die.” She says. She moves from the controls and back to beside Daryun and Arslan.

“Now you try.” Lucy speaks and walks away. Daryun cautiously takes a step forward and presses the buttons, making the character jump up. He looks at Arslan who shrugs, and then goes back to pressing buttons, taking turns with Arslan.

 

At the end of the day, Arslan and Daryun are starstruck about the games. 

“I wish we had those in our world.” Arslan says. “It is a fun way to pass the time.”

“It is.” Daryun agrees. They walk back from the arcade with Team Natsu, laughing as Natsu talks about someone he met while playing a fire mage game.


	10. Chapter 10

Arslan P.O.V.

Master Makarov stood on the second floor’s railing with his hands behind his back and a stern-ish look on his face.

“Listen up!” He yelled. Everyone quieted down. “The Grand Magic Games are coming up, and we are participating!” He announced. Most of the guild was cheering and it took a while to finally calm down completely. Master Makarov fixed the guild with a serious look before continuing on.

“I want everyone to go and train for the games. I do not know yet who I will pick to actually compete, but it is best for everyone to be in their top conditions just in case! Daryun, Arslan, I know you just joined and don’t actually have any magic that we know of, but you should train as well.” They nodded in agreement. 

“Get started!” Master Makarov yelled again. He climbed down from the railing as the guild bubbled back into louder chatter.

“Hey, Daryun, Arslan. We are planning on training together as a team with a few others but we wanted to make sure you guys were okay with it first.” Lucy says, appearing beside them. Arslan nods.

“It would be our pleasure to train with friends.” Daryun says. Lucy nods and smiles.

“Great! I’ll tell Natsu and then we can get everyone and head out.” Lucy announces. Arslan and Daryun nod and watch as Lucy leaves. She comes back a few minutes later with a group of people behind her and smiles.

“Alright. Let’s pack and then meet in front of the guild in two hours.” She says. Everyone nods and breaks of, going to their houses to pack. 

 

With their backpacks packed, Arslan and Daryun walk back to the front of the guild, happy to spot Lucy, Natsu, Happy, Gray, and Erza already there. Behind everyone was a small backpack of their things, except for Erza. She had a wagon overflowing with all her luggage in suitcases and bags, though some was spilling out it stayed on the wagon. 

“Erza, are you sure you need everything that you have with you?” Arslan asks. Erza nods fiercely.

“You will never know what you might need on trips.” She answer. Arslan looks up at Daryun confused, but shrugs it off. 

“Alright. Is everyone ready?” Lucy asks, turning to face the group once everyone has arrived. Everyone nods and a few spaced out answers are heard. 

“Great! Let’s go!” And they walk from the front of the guild, ready to train.


	11. Chapter 11

Daryun P.O.V.

The teams finally arrived at their destination and they all smiled, looking at the water crashing against the sand. Daryun looked over and saw Arslan’s look of amazement and wonder as he stared at the beach. 

“Your Highness, we need to buy what they call ‘bathing suits’ to go into the water.” Daryun reminds him before Arslan can run into the water. 

“Of course. Where do we buy them?” Arslan asks. 

“I can take you! I need a bathing suit anyway.” Wendy says. Carla nods beside her. 

“I give you my thanks.” Arslan says, smiling.

“It’s no problem.” Wendy replies. She and Carla go in front of Arslan and Daryun and lead them away to a store to buy the bathing suits. Once inside, Arslan and Daryun look around. 

“I was not expecting so many pairs of ‘bathing suits’.” Daryun ponders. 

“Well, for a beach store, there actually is less than normal. Besides, they have other things like sweaters, hats, necklaces, some foods too. Now, let’s pick out your bathing suits.” Carla says. Daryun and Arslan nod. Wendy nods at Carla and leaves in a different direction, probably picking out her own bathing suit, and Carla leads the two men to the men’s section. Arslan gravitated towards the lighter colors and Daryun to the darker, but the never really leave each other line of sight. 

Daryun goes through the hanging bathing suits, grabbing onto a black pair and showing them to Carla.

“Are these good?” He asks. Carla nods. 

“Now let’s see what Arslan has chosen.” She says, leading Daryun over to where Arslan went. Arslan is holding a light blue pair.

“I was just about to look for you. How about these?” He asks, holding them in front of him.

“Those are lovely. Now let’s find Wendy, buy the bathing suits, and join the others in training.” Carla says. She leads the duo over to the girls section and spots Wendy looking over a couple of bathing suits before choosing one and putting the other back. 

“Hi Carla, Arslan, Daryun. Are you guys ready?” Wendy asks as she looks up and spots the group.

“Yes, we are just waiting for you.” Arslan answers. Wendy nods.

“Well, I’m done now so let’s go!” She says, going over to the counter and putting her bathing suit on it. Arslan and Daryun follow her lead and watch as the person behind the desk goes through the items and puts the prices together.

“Are you in a guild?” He asks, looking at them. Wendy nods.

“Yes, we are all part of Fairy Tail. We’re here to train for the grand magic games.” She answers. The person nods.

“Alright, discount. Because you are going to need all your money for food and such, you can have these for free. Just spread news of my store around, alright?” They say. Wendy nods, smiling.

“Thank you! We will be sure to advertise.” She says. She picks up all the bathing suits, hands them to their owners, and then runs into a room to get dressed. Arslan and Daryun do the same, and soon they are all ready to start training. 

The group walks back onto the beach with their previous cloths in their arms and set them down in a small pile. Wendy ran off with Carla to the water, splashing around with her.

“Hey guys! Now that you have your bathing suits, are you going to start training or relax first?” Lucy asks, walking over to them in her white bikini with a small pink heart on the top. Arslan and Daryun’s eyes widen considerably and they turn around.

“Um, Lucy, are you aware you are walking around in just your undergarments?” Arslan asks. 

“These are not ‘undergarments’ as you put it. It’s a bathing suit, a bikini. Many girls wear them. It’s quite normal for these to be seen around beaches. You can turn back around.” She says with a giggle. 

“The only other woman I have seen in so little attire was Farangis.” Arslan says, reluctantly turning around. 

“I know what you mean, Sire. It is quite unusual. You say people walk around like that normally?” Daryun asks. 

“Of course!” Lucy answers. 

“Oh. Alright, I guess.” Arslan says. 

“Alright, so now that you have gotten over your cultural shock, what are you going to do?” Lucy asks. 

“I do not know.” Arslan asks, looking at Daryun. 

“Alright then, come with me.” Lucy says. She leads the two over to the ocean and walks in, leaning down to wet her hands. She waits until Arslan and Daryun are just behind her to quickly take her hands out and splash them, giggling at their surprised expressions. She walks further into the water until it reaches her shoulders and starts swimming around. Daryun and Arslan carefully tread into the water. They look at each other and smile before Arslan splashes Daryun. Daryun laughs and splashes Arslan back, and pretty soon a splash war starts between the entire Team Natsu. 

Eventually, when everyone is drenched and their cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling, they decide to start training. They wad out of the water and go to do their own thing, Daryun and Arslan training with their sword and spear, Lucy with her spirits, Natsu with his fire dragon slayer magic, Juvia with her water magic, Erza practicing with swords, Gray using his ice magic, and Wendy reading something with Levy’s encouragement. They practice for hours before deciding they should be done for the day. They head back to the Akane Inn to eat and sleep, doing the same thing the next day.


	12. Chapter 12

Arslan P.O.V.

This day started like any other. The training team woke up, ate, changed into their bathing suits, and went to the beach to train. Daryun and Arslan start stretching together before pulling out their swords and parrying. A small flash of light makes Arslan and Daryun turn and get their weapons at the ready, pointing at where the light came from. When it fades, a girl in a maids outfit with pink hair is standing there, Lucy on her head. 

“Watch where you pop up, Virgo!” Lucy scolds. Virgo keeps her straight face on. 

“Punishment, Princess?” ‘Virgo’ asks. Lucy sweat drops.

“No, Virgo.” She responds. Levy steps closer to Virgo, a curious but worried look on her face.

“Is something wrong, Virgo?” She asks. Virgo’s face turns sullen. 

“The Celestial World is on the brink of destruction. We could really use Fairy Tail’s help right now.” She answers. Shock fills the silence. 

“We need to go to the Spirit World and the Celestial Spirit King will catch you up about it.” Virgo says. The group nods.

“Of course. Anything we can do to help.” Lucy says. A miniscule smile graces Virgo’s face. She holds her hands out and a golden circle appears beneath the group. A bright beacon like light erupts from the circle, engulfing them. They fall through the hole and Daryun grabs onto Arslan like he is trying to protect him even though he wouldn’t be able to do much from falling. Somehow, as though listening to Daryun’s thought to keep them safe, they all land on their feet. Everyone is in different clothes than they were on the beach.   
Arslan is wearing a princely outfit, a crown lying crookedly on top of his head and his sword in a hilt on his belt. Daryun wore his knight clothes, his spear attached to his back and his helmet sitting comfortably on his head. Lucy and Natsu wore matching outfits, blue with golden accents. Gray and Levy wore somewhat matching as well, green with white accents, although Levy also had some yellow and orange. Juvia wore a white feathery-ish outfit with blue accents. Erza wore a dark blue bikini looking thing that was covered on the sides by a green dress the came together at her bellybutton and split apart again an inch or two below it. Wendy wore a pink and purple kimono tied closed with a dark blue cloth. Carla and Happy wore cute little outfits that looked like lord and lady outfits. 

“Celestial Spirit King!” Lucy exclaims, bringing Arslan and Daryun’s attention to a giant blue man with a mustache in front of them. “ Is it true your world is on the brink of destruction?” 

A beat of silence before he smiles. 

“Smile!” He says. Lucy looks confused. “My dear friends, I have requested of your presence so that we may empark of your wonderful reappearance from the prison of time. Now, let us celebrate!” He announce. All of what seem to be Lucy’s spirits appear next to the group. Lucy turns to Virgo, confused more now than before. 

“I thought you were facing destruction!” She says. Virgo smiles.

“I lied.” Virgo says. With that the party starts. People and spirits dance, scarf down food, and mingle with each other. The spirits start to seem unnaturally drawn to Arslan, but no one seems to notice. They are all startled when the Kings booming voice fills the area.

“You know Lucy, there have been many celestial spirit mages, but you are the first I have brought to this world.” He says. Gray gets an impressed look on his face and pats Lucy’s back.

“Congratulation.” He says. Lucy smiles back at him. 

“But, two of the people that have been brought here seem to be carrying a strange power.” The King speaks again. He scans the group before his gaze lands on Arslan and Daryun. “Those two. They possess a power not of your world, but at the same time it is.” 

“What does that mean? What do you mean Arslan and Daryun have a strange power? Last we knew they weren’t even magic!” Lucy asks. The King smiles.

“Well, the young prince, see how the spirits are drawn to him? Even myself? Well that can mean one of a couple things. One: He is a celestial spirit mage. But that doesn’t happen to celestial spirit mages, so that is out. Two: He is my heir. I knew we would see him some day, but I never imagined it would be so soon! So, rejoice my friends! The Celestial Spirit Prince is home!” The King announces. 

“What?!” They shout. Arslan turned paler than normal. 

“What do you mean he is the Celestial Spirit Prince? How is that possible?” Lucy asks. 

“Well, you see, a long time ago I wasn’t happy with being the only person to help rule over the spirits, so I sent out the strongest piece of my soul, with the help of some other spirits, to find a new host to be the Celestial Spirit Prince and help me rule over the spirits. Your friend Arslan seems to have been the one to receive it.” The Celestial Spirit King explains. “Arslan is the only one who can summon me at no cost because of his ability as my heir.” Arslan nods.

“It makes sense now.” He says, drawing everyone’s attention to himself. “I knew something was wrong. I look nothing my my Lady Mother or Lord Father. I do not even act like them. I grew up with a nursemaid until I had five years of age, and then I was brought into the castle. It was like they did not know I existed.” He says. Daryun nods, sullenly.

“It is true, His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen look nothing like His Highness.” He says. The Celestial Spirit King nods.

“That is because he took the manifestation of what I would have looked like if I was human mixed with the mother I chose.” He explains. They nod in understanding. 

“I can’t do much for you, Arslan, but I can give you your first spirits.” The Celestial Spirit King says. He holds out one of his hands and forms a fist like hest holding something and a key ring appears in his hand with several different colored rings on it. The Team watched in amazement as the Celestial Spirit King let go of the key ring and it slowly dove into Arslan’s hands. 

“Arslan this is so exciting!” Lucy exclaims. “Some of these keys are some I’ve never seen before!” 

“It’s so light.” Arslan says, pulling it up and down with his hand as if he was weighing it. With fourteen keys on it, Arslan was expecting it to be heavier. Thirteen of the keys were a jade color, and a singular red key looked out of place.

“The jade ones are the Chinese Zodiac. The red key is for the keeper spirits. The jade key Zodiac are like the golden key Zodiac. The keeper spirits are… different than other spirits. They have pocket dimensions you can use as well as their own defensive magic. They rarely trust anyone except for their key holders, but even then they are kind of iffy. I chose to give you this one’s key because she has been without a key holder for too long, and I think you would do her good.” The Celestial Spirit King explains, noting Arslan curious look at they keys. Arslan looks up at him and smiles.

“Thank you, Spirit King.” He says. The Celestial Spirit King smiles at him before turning his attention towards Daryun.

“You, knight, also have strange powers. You have an advanced sword magic, the ability to any sword, dagger, knife, spear, bow and arrows, or anything like that at will. You can summon multiple at once. I am sure you guys will be able to get the help and training you would need from your guild mates.” The Celestial Spirit King says. “I have the ability to unlock your powers, and it would be immediate, but it would hurt. I do not wish that on you, but the other way is more painful.” Arslan and Daryun nod. 

“Alright. When do we start?” Arslan asks. The Celestial Spirit King reaches down and touches Arslan and Daryun’s foreheads. A bright light erupts from them and when it dies down, Arslan and Daryun are standing there with pained looks on their faces, but they slowly go away as they get used to the pain. The guild members become aware of a sudden intense power radiating off of their new members. 

“Well, now that you and Daryun are all powered up, we should get back to the beach and start training again!” Natsu exclaims after a few seconds. Virgo shuffles a bit.

“I probably should have told you this before we got here, but time in our world and your world flows a little bit different.” She says.

“What? Does it go faster? I bet a year in your world is like a day in ours!” Natsu exclaims. 

“If that’s the case, we should do all our training here.” Gray agreed.

“Not… quite. It goes slower.” Virgo says. “A say in our world is the equivalent of three months in your world.” As soon as she finished talking, the group was transported back onto the beach. The group stood there on the beach, the waves crashing being the only sound along with the seagulls. They were still wearing their spirit world clothes, but they didn’t notice. Jet and Droy came running up to them.

“Hey, where were you guys? Well, it doesn’t matter. I hope that wherever you were you got training done.” 

“It’s all over.” Natsu, Gray, and Erza said at the same time before collapsing onto their stomachs in the sand. Wendy started crying and Lucy turned her face to the sky.  
“No way! Give us back our time, Mustache Face!” She yells as the group sulks. Erza suddenly stood up, a red fire surrounding her. 

“It’s not to late! We still have five days left to train!” She starts to plan it all out with Natsu. A pigeon came flying when no one was paying attention. Arslan noticed it, his eyes used to picking up flying creature because of Azrael. Arslan held his arm out and the pigeon landed on it. Daryun noticed and turned to face the pigeon, noticing a letter tied to it. He took it off the pigeons leg and unrolled it as Arslan pet the pigeon. 

“Hey guys!” Arslan calls. The group look at him and Daryun, noticing the letter Daryun is holding in his hands. They surround the two newly discovered mages and read the letter.


	13. Chapter 13

Arslan P.O.V. 

Arslan stroked the bird as Daryun read the note out load to the group. They adopted varying looks of confusion or surprise. 

“Well, we should go check it out.” Erza suggested. The group nodded and followed Erza as she led them to where the letter said to meet. When they got there all that was there was a broken rope bright and a large gap between the two pieces of land. 

“It must be a prank.” Rang out from the group. Lucy nodded in agreement.

“We should head back.” She said. Just as the team turned to leave, the bridge fixed itself.

“The person we’re dealing must be on the other side. Let’s get crossing!” Natsu yelled after a beat of silence, punching his hand. Lucy looked at Gray and smirked.

“Sure is.” Gray answered. He pushed Natsu, making him stumble onto the bridge. Natsu hopped on one foot, trying to regain his balance and stopped midway and held onto the rope. 

“That was mean!” He exclaimed. Soon after he started getting a green tint to his skin.

“Are you really getting sick from a freaking bridge?” Gray asked. Natsu found new determination and ran the rest of the way across the bridge. When he made it, he spun around and started waving his arms in the air.

“It did it!” He exclaimed.

“Huh. I thought for sure that that thing would collapse as soon as someone stepped onto it.” Lucy said. 

“Hey!” Natsu exclaimed from across the bridge. Lucy shrugged.

“Well, let’s cross!” She exclaims. The team follows her across the bridge and they follow a path, not knowing where it will lead. The group stopped walking when three cloaked figures entered their vision at the end of the forest. Erza made sure no one went forward, and the cloaked figures ended going to them. They stopped right in front of the group and took of their hoods, revealing a man with blue hair a red mark under his left eye, a girl with dark purple hair, and a girl with pink hair. Everyone except Arslan and Daryun seemed shocked at who they were. 

Eventually, Daryun and Arslan found out that the blue haired man is named Jellal, the pink haired girl is named Meredy, and the dark purple haired girl is named Ultear. Jellal had broken out of prison, but is not their enemy, and neither are the other two. They said that they want to help the team with advancing their magic powers by unlocking a second magic origin. 

“That would be really helpful. Thank you!” Lucy exclaims. 

“It’s no problem. Follow us, we’ll take you somewhere where we can start.” Ultear says. She leads the group to a cabin where she starts on Natsu first. Red lines lined his body and he yelled and growled in pain as the lines flashed, making some people have second thoughts. Eventually Ultear came over to the rest of the group.

“Alright, it’s your turn now.” She says, referring to everyone but Natsu. Some people visibly cringed at the thought but let Ultear cast her magic on them. Pretty soon, most of the group joined Natsu on the ground, shaking, crying, yelling in pain. The only ones still up were the ones without the magic cast on them and Erza, Arslan, and Daryun.

“I wonder why this isn’t having the same effect on us as it is with the rest of the team.” Arslan says to Daryun.

“Perhaps the Celestial spirit king also gave us this when he unlocked out magic for us.” Daryun answered.

“Perhaps.” Arslan agrees. The watched as Erza said goodbye to Jellal before she walked back over to the team.

“So, now that we have our second origin unlocked, how do you guys feel about extra training tomorrow?”


	14. Chapter 14

Daryun P.O.V.

Finally, after long, stressful training days, trying to catch up because of the missing three months, they went back home to Fairy Tail. Everybody was dead tired, and as soon as they reached the entrance to the guild, they collapsed on the ground.

“Home sweet home.” Natsu whines.

“Are you guys just gonna lie around all day? Get up!” Macao exclaims. Several people groaned before they mustered up the strength to stand up.

“Welcome back. Now that you are back, I not only sense magical growth, but I also sense new magic. Very powerful magic. Who would that be coming from?” Makarov asks, coming out of the guild with his hands clasped behind his back. Arslan and Daryun step up to Makarov.

“That would be us. On the training trip, one of Lucy’s spirits brought us to the celestial spirit world and the king unlocked our powers for us, as they were locked from of the world he lived in.” Arslan explains. “I have celestial spirit magic, and Daryun has a kind of weaponry magic.”

“I will be helping Arslan with his spirits.” Lucy says, stepping up.

“And I will help Daryun with his weapons.” Erza says, stepping up as well with a sparkle in her eyes. 

“Alright. Let us go inside the guild and we will talk further there.” Makarov says, leading the group inside. Makarov steps onto a platform, leaving the group in front of it and turns towards the entire guild, also huddled around the stage. 

“I have an announcement! I will be telling everyone the five people that will participate in the Grand Magic Games! The participants will be, Natsu! Gray! Erza!” He exclaims. Everyone agrees with him on that, seeing as they are some of the guilds strongest. “The last two will be, Lucy and Arslan!” You could almost hear a pin drop in the silence before an ear rattling sound bursts from the crowd.

“WHAT?!” Several people yell.

“But, Arslan has no magic, the last that we heard!” Someone yells out. 

“A well, on the training trip that Team Natsu and a few others took, Arslan and Daryun unlocked their magic because of the celestial spirit king. Arslan has celestial spirit magic, and Daryun has weaponry magic.” Makarov explains.

“Then why have both Arslan and Lucy? They’re both celestial spirit mages!” The same person yells. 

“Because Arslan is a powerful and unexpected asset. He will be helpful to win the Grand Magic Games!” Makarov says. A sudden, dark and almost evil stare makes its presence known when Makarov finishes speaking. Makarov turns and quickly spots Daryun’s death glare, surprised to see it because of its rarity. Makarov sweat-drops.

“He can, of course, learn other magics as well! Who can help Arslan and teach him some knew magic?” He asks, laughing nervously. A very muscular arm raises from somewhere in the back of the crowd.

“Thank you for willingly taking up this opportunity to teach Arslan some new magic. Arslan, meet your magic trainer, Laxus.” Makarov says, gesturing for Laxus to walk onto the stage. The guild once again quiets down as Laxus makes his way up to the stage.

“So, which one am I supposed to train?” Laxus asks. Arslan raises his hand. “Alright. Meet me outside when everything is done here and I’ll give you the crash course on lightning dragon slayer magic.” With that, Laxus jumps off the stage and walks out the door to the guild. The guild once again breaks out in whispers, though this time they are more confused and immediate. 

“Why is everyone acting like that? He only said he would help me in training.” Arslan says. 

“I do not know, Your Highness.” Daryun responds. 

“It’s because Laxus would never do that! He has almost never offered to help anyone ever since I’ve been here.” Lucy says.

“Oh. Well, people do change. Maybe it’s his time to change.” Arslan says. As everyone starts dispersing, and Arslan goes outside to start training with Laxus and Daryun goes to follow him when Makarov starts speaking again. 

“I have decided that we will have one more Fairy Tail team. It will consist of Mystogan, Juvia, Gajeel, Mirajane, and Daryun.” He says. “If you guys win, you can have the other team do anything you want them to and they can not complain.” Taking his final words as a dismissal, they left, this time not being stopped. Daryun went outside to find Arslan already getting the hang of the lightning magic. Instead of Laxus’ yellow lightning, Arslan had cyan lightning sparking at his fingertips. He brought his hands together and then ripped them apart just as fast, lightning sparking in an arch in between his hands and growing ever taller. When Arslan stopped moving his hands away, the lightning arch split into two rods and struck at where Arslan aimed his hands.

Daryun stared in amazement at the powerful display of lightning, only breaking out of his uncharacteristic moment when Laxus claps his hands together a few times.  
“Good job, Arslan. That was way better than before. Your getting it.” Laxus complements. Arslan beams up at him.

“Thank you for your assistance, Laxus. I couldn’t have come this far if it weren’t for you.” Arslan says. Laxus slaps a hand on Arslan’s back making Arslan stumble a little and Daryun to almost go into overprotective guard mode. 

“Well, now that you are all trained and ready, we should probably regroup with the rest of the guild and head out to the Games.” Laxus suggests.

“Yes, that would be best.” Arslan nods. He walks up to Daryun and walks the rest of the way back into the guild with him. As soon as all the guild is in the same place, they head out to the Games. Team A, what the guild is calling the original team for the Games, leaves first to go to the registry, leaving the rest of the guild to do the same. Somehow though, even though Team B took the long route, they ended up at the registry first. Makarov registered both teams at the same time. Picking up a rule book, The guild goes to the agreed meetup spot and Makarov hands Erza the rule book. Levy starts reading it outloud, and then they split up to explore the city with a quick reminder to be back at the hotel by midnight. 

Daryun and Arslan decided to do the exploring together, like they normally do things, and break of from Team A and the still secret Team B. Arslan and Daryun walk around, Daryun walking with an amused smile as Arslan gazes in wonder at the shops full of foods, cloths, flowers, and an assortment of other things. They bought a few things, like some cloth to make some winter clothing, some foods they had never seen before, and two bags, one per person, to carry anything else they decide they might want and/or need, as well as the money they have. 

By 11:30, they went back to the inn that Team A is staying at to rest their legs before Arslan (and Daryun) have to do the intro round. Daryun opened the door and saw Erza already sitting on one bed in her pajamas.

“Hello, Erza. How has your night been so far?” Arslan asks, walking into the room with Daryun behind him. 

“It’s been quiet so far. Peaceful, relaxing. What about yours?” She asked. “You haven’t been in this world long and I know most things are still new to you.” 

“It was wonderful. We discovered many new foods, different patterns, thicknesses, and textures of clothes, and many different magical artifacts!” Arslan exclaims. 

“Yeah, those can be bit of a cultural shock.” Erza responds. Arslan sits down on a bed and Daryun glances at a clock on the wall, finding them more helpful than telling time by the position of the sun or moon. The clock read 11:45 and all of Team A’s other teammates come filing into the room. 

“Highness, now would be a good time for me to leave. It would be best for you to start getting ready for the first task.” Daryun says. Arslan looks up and then looks at the clock before bringing his gaze back to Daryun. 

“So it seems. Farewell, Daryun. I will see you later.” Arslan says. Daryun lowers his head as a mini bow and leaves the room, heading over to the meeting place that Team B agreed on. Seeing the rest of his team already there, he picked up his pace and joined them. As soon as he reached them, they started walking towards their inn. 

“I hope I did not leave you waiting long.” Daryun says.

“No, we had just started gathering here a few minutes before you arrived.” Gajeel responds. Daryun nods and the continue the rest of the way to the guild in comfortable silence.


	15. Chapter 15

Arslan P.O.V.

After Daryun left the room, most of the team sat around on the beds, waiting for the first task to start. By the time the clock hit 11:55, the team went out onto the balcony connected to the room. When the clock hit midnight, an image of a man with a giant pumpkin head appeared in the middle of the air, surprising Arslan. 

“The rules are quite simple.” It speaks. The buildings start growing taller, making Natsu kneel down and start looking sick. Several other buildings also grow to about the same height. “Now, you will all be participating in a race! The exit is at the coliseum! Only the first eight teams to reach it will be able to participate in the Grand Magic Games!” A wooden bridge starts growing from the top of the railing on the balcony, leading to a sphere that appeared in the air.

“You can use your magic in any way you see fit, there are no restrictions! But remember, only the first eight team to cross the finish line can participate! However, all five team member must cross the finish line for it to count! But remember one more thing! We are not responsible for any death that may occur in the labyrinth.” The team gasps. Gray answers.

“You may begin!” With that, they all jump onto the wooden bridge and run into the labyrinth. A large, solid platform signified that they were in the labyrinth. Looking around, Arslan noticed some things that were upside down or sideways. 

“Woah, it’s like some sort of 3D maze.” Gray remarked.

“The colosseum was towards the east when we were on the ground, so we should head that way.” Lucy summoned her compass spirit, Pyxis, and they determined what way east was.

“Yes, I was aware, because I brought a regular compass.” Erza said. Lucy crouches down as she and Pyxis sulk.

“What is a ‘compass’?” Arslan asks. Used to his not knowing things, Erza hands him the compass so he can see it.

“A compass is something that helps us see what way is which.” Erza answers. Arslan nods and hands the compass back to Erza. “What do you guys do to determine what direction you are going in?” 

“Well, we mostly look at the position of the sun or moon to determine what direction we are going in and what time it is.” Arslan responds. The group nods, impressed, as they start walking towards their destination. 

“So you everyone from your world knows how?” Gray asked. Arslan nods.

“Of course. Even if they cannot go to school or not, we all grow up with it. It is like basic knowledge.” 

“Huh. That’s interesting.” Arslan nods his head and notices they are nearing a door.

“Hey, where does that lead?” Arslan asks.

“Let’s find out.” Erza responds, opening the door. 

“I feel like I could fall right in.” Lucy says. The group runs through the door, leading into a tunnel, and Natsu opens a door at the other side. He accidentally steps off the edge and waves his arms rapidly, trying to regain his balance and not fall through the labyrinth until Erza grabs the back of his shirt, effectively pulling him back up on both feet. They continue looking around, trying to find another path. 

“Should we make a map?” Arslan suggests, looking around.

“Probably. Does anyone have any paper?” Lucy asks. Everyone checks their pockets and gives Lucy all they have, leaving Lucy to pull a pen out of thin air. She sketched out where they had already been and then where they are on a different page. 

“Alright let’s go. I can keep drawing the map the further we go.” Lucy says. Erza nods. They continue walking, always going East, until eventually they come face to face with another guild. 

“Give us your map.” One of the men says.

“No way!” Lucy exclaims. The men punch their fists and stalk towards the Fairy Tail team, not expecting what happens. As soon as the men made a move, Arslan pulled out his sword and stood in front of the team, sword aimed at the other men. They laugh scoffingly.

“What can a puny guy like you do with a non-magical sword against wizards? What are you even doing here? This is a magical competition.” One guy mocks. Arslan smiles.

“This.” He simply states. Arslan takes his pointer and middle finger and run them along the edge of the blade, lightning dancing of his fingers and onto the sword. As soon as he reaches the end, the whole sword is lit up with lightning. Arslan swings his sword, sending lightning in a curve in the direction of the men. 

“What the hell?” One man exclaims. Arslan smiles.

“That was, as you say, ‘awesome’.” He says. Gray smirks.

“Yeah it was!” He yells. Several of the men that had attacked them were surprised enough to accidentally walk off the edge of the platform they were standing on and where gripping the side in fear of falling. The ones that managed to stay on were shaking.

“What was that?” One asks.

“I-I don’t know.” Another answers. A third one stands straight.

“That was a one time thing, right? I bet you can’t do that again!” He exclaims. “You won’t be able to win against my plant magic!” He holds his arms out and plants rise from the platform, swinging around at the Fairy Tail team. Arslan cuts through the plants though, and Gray and Erza take care of the rest. Natsu walks up to the guy, fire in his eyes, and punches him off the platform. The other men start scramblin away from the team and fling themselves off the platform. 

“Hey, they dropped this.” Natsu says, picking up a collection of papers.

“It’s another map!” Lucy exclaims.

“That probably means that the other teams also have maps.” Erza says.

“We should get other teams maps as well.” Natsu suggests. Lucy agrees and they start searching out other teams to collect their maps. After several teams and several maps, Lucy puts them together and leads the team to the middle of the labyrinth. 

“Now, which way is east?” Gray asks. Erza pulls out her compass and looks at the top, only to see the point spinning in circles. 

“I don’t know. The compass broke.” She says. Arslan raises his hand and points in a direction.

“It’s that way.” He says. “I was paying attention to the stars on the way here.” Lucy smiles.

“Alright!” She exclaims. The team starts running towards the east and a door appears at the end of the path. The door as the word goal on it, flashing to catch people's attention. When they reached the door, the pumpkin man was standing there with his hands clasped behind his back. 

“Congratulations! You have passed the preliminary round!” He exclaims, clapping.

“I’m just dying to know, did we come in first place?” Lucy asks.

“Err, no. More like… eight place.” He says.

“What?! Eighth place?”


End file.
